FIR B2B

Hosted by Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman, FIR B2B covers the latest news in B2B communications, interview practitioners at innovative companies, and present weekly ideas and tips for making the most of online and in-person conversations.
Paul is a speaker, writer and B2B content marketing strategist who specializes in social media. Eric is a veteran PR practitioner currently focused on social media compliance. Eric and Paul are the co-authors of the 2011 book, "Social Marketing to the Business Customer";

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

FIR B2B #23: John Sculley On Why Successful Businesses Need to Think Different

In this episode:

News & Trends

Eric shares the results of his recently completed study on
Internet and social media use in South American and Latin America. Some
highlights: Latin American Internet users are more engaged on social media than
US users. Five of the 10 countries with the most hours spent on social networks
per month are in Latin America. The most popular social networking brand in
Latin America is Facebook, which hosts 21 million more Latin American profiles
than US profiles. Argentina is the world’s most engaged global population on
Twitter and Brazil is the world’s second most engaged population on Facebook.
The research also looks into what topics people discuss in Latin America and
even the languages they prefer to use for each topic. The research isn’t
published, so we unfortunately can’t give you a link, but .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you’d like to learn
more.

Forbes has been pushing the envelope on native advertising,
but Paul believes it pushed too far with its March issue, which
features a sponsored package from Fidelity on the cover without any clear
labeling. When asked to comment by Advertising Age, Forbes’ chief revenue
officer said the placement was appropriate because the package features “strong
content.” Paul has been a big fan of Forbes Media’s Chief Product Officer Lewis
DVorkin and his innovative experiments with native advertising, but he believes
this latest experiment strayed over the line into deception. And why is the
head of sales speaking for the value of content to the reader?

Eric is working with the US Department of State on a digital climate change communications strategy. He’s looking to pitch strategic partnerships to folks at iPhone, Facebook, Twitter and Hootsuite, so if you want to save our planet, tweet him at @ericschwartzman if you can make a personal intro..

Special Guest: John Sculley

Most people know John Sculley as the CEO of Apple Computer
from 1983 to 1993, a tumultuous time that featured the exile of founder Steve
Jobs. Although Sculley was associated with the failed Newton PDA and was
ultimately fired from Apple, he also grew the company’s revenues tenfold and
introduced concepts in the Newton that are standard features on smart phones
today.

Sculley has had a storied and successful career. As the
youngest-ever CEO of Pepsi, he oversaw the enormously successful Pepsi
Generation and Pepsi Challenge campaigns. Since leaving Apple he has been
involved in the launch and operations of many companies in industries ranging
from consumer goods to healthcare.

In his new book, Moonshot!:
Game-Changing Strategies to Build Billion-Dollar Businesses, he writes
about the dramatic technology changes that have put customers in control and changed the competitive landscape, requiring successful companies to
continually probe and test the market for new opportunities. In our interview,
Sculley talks about his experiences at Apple and what he’s learned about how breakthrough
companies think differently.

About Your Hosts

Paul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman
is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams
on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated
marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government
agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all
over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations
communicate and the way people use media and information.

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Monday, February 09, 2015

FIR B2B #22: Why B2B Communicators Should Care About Freedom on the Net

In this episode:

News & Trends

Twitter beat the street on earnings, but subscriber
growth is slowing and some people are calling for radical steps to ramp up
activity. Did Twitter’s focus on maximizing revenue cause it to lose touch with
the unique experience it once gave members? Can current management restore some
of Twitter’s early magic? Wired says twitter
may becoming the Bing of social media – a capable product whose virtues are
only appreciated by a technology-savvy elite.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is
going gangbusters thanks to a clear mission and a willingness to forsake
short-term revenue opportunities to maintain trust with its members. The company
should be praised for its willingness to forego short-term revenue
opportunities in order to keep its eye on long-term growth.

The excellent Buffer Blog analyzes
the factors that took the company from 0 to 275,000 Twitter followers in
four years. Early outreach to influencers and a commitment to make Twitter a
key communication channel with users are a couple of highlights. Buffer’s
commitment to transparency even extends to publishing the salaries
and stock options of all its employees and the status of its fundraising
efforts. The company even has an internal practice of sharing all emails
publicly. Not many companies would be comfortable with that level of
transparency, but it certainly sets Buffer apart from the pack.

Reputation.com’s Michael Fertik makes a persuasive case why
reputation is now more important than money. “I am less afraid of big brother
than I am of little brothers, meaning companies that have all this data,” he
writes in his new book. In other words, you should worry less about how government
uses private information than how private companies can misuse it through
practices like profiling.

Special Guest: Madeline Earp, Research Analyst at Freedom
House

Freedom House says the Internet is becoming a more dangerous
place to express opinions. The nonprofit has just published its annual Freedom on
the Net report, which takes a look in depth at 65 countries and their
progress on online freedom. The report is not very encouraging. It finds that
privacy and free expression are increasingly under assault by governments, even
in some well-developed economies. Research Analyst Madeline Earp explains why
businesses should care about online freedom and how it may impact their ability
to do business overseas.

Madeline Earp (@MadelineEarp)
researches Internet freedom throughout Asia for Freedom House’s Freedom on the
Net program. She is fluent in Chinese and an expert on restrictions facing new
and traditional media in China. She previously worked at the Committee to
Protect Journalists and Human Rights in China. She has published considerable
research on Chinese press freedom issues. A fluent Mandarin speaker, she
received a master’s degree in East Asian studies from Harvard University and a
bachelor’s in English literature from Cambridge University.

About Your Hosts

Paul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman
is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams
on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated
marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government
agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all
over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations
communicate and the way people use media and information.

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Friday, January 16, 2015

FIR B2B #21: Behind Backbone Media’s Ambitious Predictions Project

In this episode:

News & Trends

The Charlie Hebdo tragedy in Paris illustrated the terrible
consequences of free speech. The New York Times’ David
Brooks pointed out that the satirical newspaper that rallied the French
people in the wake of the shootings could never be published on American
university campuses because its content is politically incorrect. Are there lessons
to be learned by businesses as well? InCorporate guidelines on what employees can
and can’t say are full of political correctness that may unintentionally
suppress the honesty that makes our organizations better.

MarketingProfs offers some best
practices for employee advocacy programs. Advocacy is the low-hanging fruit
of word-of-mouth marketing, yet many companies don’t have formal programs in
place or under-support the ones they do. This may be the year that advocacy
finally gets the attention it deserves.

Special Guest: Paul Salvaggio, Backbone Media

Content marketing firm Backbone Media put together an ambitious
collection of 100 digital marketing predictions from 25 thought leaders at
the end of last year. The team had to crack the problem of minimizing the time
commitment it asked of the participants while maximizing the value and exposure
of what they said. The result was multimedia-rich collage that combine video, audio,
text and even PowerPoint with abundant sharing options.

Backbone’s Operations VP Paul Salvaggio takes us behind the scenes
to explain how the project was managed and the unique value the company
realized. In addition to generating positive buzz for Backbone and the thought
leaders interviewed, the company created a template that clients are already
asking to use in their own projects.

About Your Hosts

Paul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Eric Schwartzman
is a digital strategist with 15 years of experience selling and leading teams
on the agency side in the development and delivery of innovative integrated
marketing initiatives for multinational corporations, NGOs, federal government
agencies and military commands. He is a frequent speaker at conferences all
over the world on the topic of how technology is changing the way organizations
communicate and the way people use media and information.

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

FIR B2B #20: Indium’s Awesome Engineers

In this episode:

News & Trends

A new study finds that online
customer reviews are just as important to B2B marketers as they are to B2C
marketer. The finding underscores the need for B2B companies of all types to
have influencer review programs.

Jon Spenceley, Community Marketing Manager at Vidyard, write
an interesting piece entitled “The
Optimal Length for B2B Videos Throughout the Funnel.” He suggests that
while top-of-the-funnel videos should be limited to 90 seconds or so,
lower-funnel videos can run much longer. It all depends on what kind of content
the prospect is looking for.

Indium, a maker of
metal alloys for high-tech manufacturing, has one of the most creative and
successful inbound marketing campaigns we’ve ever seen. It focuses on
connecting engineers to the highly technical customers they serve, with Indium
experts helping customers solve problems in exchange for contact information.
It’s paying off so well that the company can afford to increase its focus on
lead quality because it has more than enough leads in the hopper.

Rick
Short championed the "From One
Engineer to Another” more than five years ago. His perspectives on the role
of marketing as an enabler of conversations rather than a messaging firehose is
one more marketers need to hear. The success of the program certainly confers
him with credibility.

Paul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Monday, November 24, 2014

FIR B2B #19: Doubts about Social Media’s Lead Gen Potential

In this episode:

News & Trends

Two new surveys cast doubt on the value of social media as a lead generation vehicle. A Hootsuite survey found that the top three value propositions cited by respondents relate to ongoing customer engagement rather than lead generation. A separate Software Advice study looked at cost per lead compared to lead quality and found that traditional tactics like events and e-mail marketing have the best returns. Organic social media marketing and social media advertising, which have some of the lowest costs per lead, also produced the worst quality leads. The big loser was online display advertising, which finished near the bottom in lead quality and near the top in lead cost.

Writing on the Biznology blog, Heather Lloyd Martin asks, “Are you tired of playing Google’s game?” She cites Google’s frustratingly frequent changes in direction as a reason for marketers to diversify their platforms beyond the search giant’s. Her advice: Use email newsletters, guest posts and off-line vehicles like direct mail and events.

HubSpot has “43 Bright Ideas for Promoting Your Lead Gen Content,” and many are very good and inexpensive. Use blog posts, podcasts and SlideShare as well as signposting across all of your owned properties to make visitors aware of your content assets. Don’t just assume that because you post it they will come.

Special Guests: Don Lesem and David Wagman of IHS and Engineering360

Our special guests are Don Lesem, vice president of Digital Media and Engineering Insight at IHS, Inc. and David Wagman (left), editorial director of Engineering360, which is the company’s newest information and community portal. IHS has provided information and analytics across a variety of industries for more than 50 years. Since going public in 2005 it has acquired dozens of companies and expanded its services to include communities and news as well as deep insight and reports. IHS now has community sites in maritime, aerospace & defense, electronics and engineering as well as smaller specialty sites for data sheets and airport management. Future launches are being considered in auto transportation and chemicals.

Each portal provides curated and original content written by knowledgeable freelancers, with the focus being on educating and informing the audience rather than selling services. Marketers should regard them as legitimate media outlets for vertical audiences as well as potential sources for placing thought leadership content. David Wagman explains how the day-to-day news reporting process works, what he’s doing to better understand audience needs and how marketers can work more effectively with his team.

Paul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

FIR B2B #18: John Fox on Why Marketers Need to Get Out of the Office

In this episode:

News & Trends

Only a minority of marketers are satisfied with their
content marketing efforts, according to the annual Content Marketing
Institute/MarketingProfs survey. But only about one-third have a documented
content marketing strategy and even fewer measure ROI. Could there be a
correlation there? If you don’t have measures of success, your program will
fail.

New
research by The Economist Group and Peppercomm finds that B2B buyers define
“quality content” as that which “contains timely or unique information,” “helps
me to understand a complex issue in simple terms” is interesting or presents a
unique perspective. So there are some guidelines marketers can run with.

Marketo continues its creative series of e-books with a new
one called Real
Marketer Stories that presents one tip from each from 20 marketers. What’s
cool is how Marketo packaged the piece in a colorful comic book format and
designated each marketer with a “superpower.” Creativity often comes from
taking a different approach.

It’s perhaps not surprising that 94% of B2B buyers report
conducting some degree of research online before making a business purchase, and
that 55% do so for at least half of their purchases. But what’s really
interesting about this new
research from Acquity Group is that more than 83% of buyers say they use
supplier websites to conduct research. The bad news: only 37% say those
resources are useful.

Paul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Sunday, October 05, 2014

FIR B2B #17: Sandy Carter on What Separates Pacesetting Companies From the Rest

Paul is solo again this week. In this episode:

News & Trends

A post titled “7 Web Design Trends That Are Outdated” on the Conetix blog covers many of the worst practices in B2B websites: boring stock photos, pointless oversized banners and (worst of all) auto-play videos.

Don’t short-change your video production by limiting it to a video platform. Many people would rather read or listen to your content than watch it, so give them a choice. “What to Do When Your B2B Video Marketing Doesn’t Go Viral” from the Online Results Blog by Whittington Consulting has some excellent ideas. Also check out Knowledge@Wharton for an excellent example of how to use multiple media together.

Kristen Vaughn took away some lessons for B2B marketers from the HubSpot Inbound 2014 conference and she shares them on the KOMarketing Associates blog. Malcolm Gladwell urged the audience to “be a deeply disagreeable person,” meaning have the courage to disagree. Matevz Klanjsek of Celtra likens prospecting to courtship. If you keep inviting people to “learn more,” they won’t.

Special Guest: Sandy Carter

Sandy Carter’s name is synonymous with the term “social business.” The 25-year IBM veteran has long been one of the company’s most prominent advocates for the use of social media, and she’s an accomplished practitioner with nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter. Sandy is the author of three book, including the the bestselling “Get Bold” in 2011. Her awards include: “Brand Leader of the Year” from the World Brand Congress, “Top 10 in Social Media” from Altimeter Group and Fast Company’s “Most Influential Women in Technology.” She was also named one of the “Ten most powerful women in tech” by CNN magazine.

Sandy is currently General Manager of Ecosystems, ISVs and Entrepreneurs at IBM, a role that has her working with many born-on-the-Web startups. She joined us for this interview a day after launching Digital.nyc, an online hub for New York technology entrepreneurs. Sandy talked with us about the latest IBM Tech Trends Report, which found that leading companies are embracing cloud services, leveraging partnerships for speed and innovation and adopting social business principles.

Paul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), the first book devoted entirely to B2B social media marketing. He is also a social media trainer and coach at Profitecture, a training firm for B2B companies and their channel partners.

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or connect with him on Twitter: @pgillin

Allan Schoenberg is based Vice President, Corporate Public Relations and Communications at TIAA-CREF in New York. As part of the firm’s Enterprise Communications team within Marketing, this role helps the team drive firm-wide corporate communications, employee communications, reputation and crises management, social media, CEO positioning and public policy communications. He has more than 20 years of experience in B2B communications, including his work for Accenture, Edelman Worldwide, Fleishman Hillard and CME Group..

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future podcasts, in the online FIR Podcast Community on Google+.

You can also send us instant voicemail via SpeakPipe, right from the FIR website. Or, call the Comment Line at +1 415 895 2971 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments. You can tweet us: @FIRpodcast. And you can email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). If you wish, you can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

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